The Age of Consent: The Rise of Relativism and the Corruption of Popular Culture

Rating:
Summary: Extremely Relevant...But...
Review: Author Robert H. Knight, in his "Age of Consent," tackles a huge topic. Yet his historic survey-like description of popular culture's decline misses two key consequences of "Relativism," as a social ethos: (1) Comparativism (which neutrally treats all 'belief/opinion systems' as equally valid); and (2) Moral Legalism (which suggests that legal permissibility--and arguable legal versions of fact, however interpretive--is the ultimate moral authority. (If it's legal, or in a gray area, or undetectable...it's OK, so long as no real harm comes to anyone.) The author fails to expand on the two-edged sword predicament of Relativism, as both a media marketing necessity in a multi-ethnic America, and also the divisive foundation for potential Balkanization. A good intro to the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely Relevant...But...
Review: Author Robert H. Knight, in his "Age of Consent," tackles a huge topic. Yet his historic survey-like description of popular culture's decline misses two key consequences of "Relativism," as a social ethos: (1) Comparativism (which neutrally treats all 'belief/opinion systems' as equally valid); and (2) Moral Legalism (which suggests that legal permissibility--and arguable legal versions of fact, however interpretive--is the ultimate moral authority. (If it's legal, or in a gray area, or undetectable...it's OK, so long as no real harm comes to anyone.) The author fails to expand on the two-edged sword predicament of Relativism, as both a media marketing necessity in a multi-ethnic America, and also the divisive foundation for potential Balkanization. A good intro to the subject.

Rating:
Summary: An angry protest against cultural decay, with hopeful ending
Review: Bob Knight is angry with an America that has taken the wrong path, and he takes the cultural leaders to task for leading the country astray since the 1960s. High culture, low culture, and middlebrow are all misguided, according to this book, and only a return to American traditions will rescue American civilization from decay. In his final chapter he finds hope in grass-roots America, which Knight argues can revitalize the country's intellectual and cultural life, if given a chance. Written from a Christian perspective, it presents an important point of view which should be seriously considered by all Americans interested in cultural developments.

Rating:
Summary: An angry protest against cultural decay, with hopeful ending
Review: Bob Knight is angry with an America that has taken the wrong path, and he takes the cultural leaders to task for leading the country astray since the 1960s. High culture, low culture, and middlebrow are all misguided, according to this book, and only a return to American traditions will rescue American civilization from decay. In his final chapter he finds hope in grass-roots America, which Knight argues can revitalize the country's intellectual and cultural life, if given a chance. Written from a Christian perspective, it presents an important point of view which should be seriously considered by all Americans interested in cultural developments.

Rating:
Summary: Right wing hand wringing and moralizing
Review: If you want to see what happens to a country when a fundamentalist religious movement hijacks a country you need only look at Iran and Afghanistan. The same would happen here if Gary Bauer and his ilk actually achieved a real measure of power. Their ascendancy would result in a financial collapse that would make the Great Depression look like a tea party. It's so easy to blame easy targets like film, music and the latest whipping boy of the right wing, the 60's, for what's going on in America today. It lets lazy politicians look like they're actually accomplishing something. Watch out...Bauer's running for President.